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You’re never going to read ‘The Wealth of Nations,’ and you shouldn’t, really. It’s 900 pages.

P. J. O'Rourke

Politics is a necessary evil, or a necessary annoyance, a necessary conundrum.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Annoyance Conundrum Necessary Politics
The 1960s was an era of big thoughts. And yet, amazingly, each of these thoughts could fit on a T-shirt.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Big Each Era Shirt Thought
Agriculture is a business that has been up to its bib overalls in politics since the first Thanksgiving dinner kickback to the Indians for subsidizing Pilgrim maize production with fish head fertilizer grants.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Agriculture Business Dinner Fertilizer Grant Indian Overall Politics Thanksgiving
I like to think of my behavior in the sixties as a ‘learning experience.’ Then again, I like to think of anything stupid I’ve done as a ‘learning experience.’ It makes me feel less stupid.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Again Anything Behaviour Done Experience Learn Sixties Stupid Think
The world is being run by irresponsible spoiled brats.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Being Brat Irresponsible Spoil World
The importance of local governance may not be obvious to an America accustomed to treating city and state downfalls with doses of federal comeuppance. Sometimes there’s a reason for that – the Civil War. More often, all reasoning seems absent – No Child Left Behind.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Behind Civil Downfall Government Importance Local State Treat War
New Hampshire polling data are unreliable because, when you call the Granite State’s registered Republicans and independents in the middle of dinner and ask them who they’re going to vote for, they have a mouth full of mashed potatoes and you can’t understand what they say.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Independent New Poll Registered Republican Unreliable
The budget doesn’t have much control over the government. Then again, the government doesn’t have much control over the budget.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Again Budget Control Government Much Over
The 20th century was a test bed for big ideas – fascism, communism, the atomic bomb.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Atomic Bed Big Bomb Century Idea Test
If you spend 72 hours in a place you’ve never been, talking to people whose language you don’t speak about social, political, and economic complexities you don’t understand, and you come back as the world’s biggest know-it-all, you’re a reporter. Either that or you’re President Obama.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Economic Hour Language People Place Political Seventy Social Spend Talk Two
The Communist bloc of old was a study in the failure of failure. Losers in the Soviet economy were the people at the end of the long lines for consumer goods. Worse losers were the people who had spent hours getting to the head of the line, only to be told that the goods were unavailable.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Communist Country Economy End Failure Line Long Made People Soviet
If you ask the government to solve all of your problems, it’s a bit like asking your wife to cook and clean, to raise the children, to hold down a second job to help with the family finances, to keep her parents happy and well and keep your parents happy and well, and to also – to do the lawn and clean the gutters.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Ask Children Clean Cook Down Government Hold Problem Solve
We need a government, alas, because of the nature of humans.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Government Human Nature Need
Gossip is what you say about the objects of flattery when they aren’t present.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Flatter Gossip Object Present
America has to act. But, when America acts, other nations accuse us of being ‘hegemonistic’, of engaging in ‘unilateralism’, of behaving as if we’re the only nation on earth that counts. We are.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Accuse Act Behave Being Country Engage Unilateralism
Computers seem a little too adaptively flexible, like the strange natives, odd societies, and head cases we study in the social sciences. There’s more opposable thumb in the digital world than I care for; it’s awfully close to human.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Adaptively Computer Little Native Odd Science Seem Social Society Strange

You’re never going to read ‘The Wealth of Nations,’ and you shouldn’t, really. It’s 900 pages.

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You’re never going to read ‘The Wealth of Nations,’ and you shouldn’t, really. It’s 900 pages.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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